Message in a Bottle Monday, August 31, 2009 The right field stands at Turner Field in Atlanta have been home to a huge Coca-Cola bottle advertising structure since the stadium first opened. But time took its toll on the old bottle, so Coke turned to the design team at Freeman to create a replacement that takes the iconic bottle to the next level. The new bottle stands 49 feet tall, weighs in at 11,000 pounds, and features a complete custom LED lighting setup built in. The first goal of the project was to keep it eco-friendly. “We wanted to use as much recycled content as possible. All of the lighting inside the bottle uses such low wattage it saves a lot of energy compared to the old bottle,” says Freeman project manager Danny Powell. When up and running, the bottle’s dazzling LED light display uses about as much electricity as running a large commercial clothes dryer. The bottle’s skin is made of a polycarbonate material. Powell wanted to use a product that had that Coca-Cola bottle green color, and the polycarbonate material gave a very good effect of looking like an actual glass bottle. “It’s not a recycled material, but it is impact resistant and U/V protected. It was important to use a material that would withstand the elements and last a long time,” Powell says. Lighting partner Display Supply & Lighting suggested sandblasting the interior of the polycarb panels to diffuse the LED light, and give a better visual performance. The bottle’s label is a high-resolution screen that wraps around the structure, while 3,000 embedded LEDs inside the translucent skin complete the lighting “wow!” factor. An amazing six-and-a-half-miles of cabling is hidden within the structure. “The label is on 24 hours a day, so it’s an advertising billboard in a sense. Coke and the Braves both have the capability to program whatever they want into the LED sign. It’s also taller and higher [than the old bottle], which gives a better perspective from the highway and other areas. With the LEDs as bright as they are, you can see that thing from downtown,” Powell says. The new bottle was installed during Major League Baseball’s All-Star break—the only time the Braves were away from home long enough for the old bottle to be demolished and the new one set up. The structure itself was prefabricated at Freeman’s Texas facility and trucked to Atlanta on a wide load flatbed truck. “The challenge was to get the visuals Coke wanted. The lighting was a huge issue; the placement of the lights was important because there’s limited space inside the bottle. I think building the structure in a way that would meet the weight load restrictions of the stadium was the biggest challenge,” Powell says. Once the bottle was lit up and doing its thing, Powell could look back and smile. “I wish I could do about 10 more of these things. Taking something from concept to reality in the sense of a Coke bottle was incredible. It was great seeing it lit up for the first time.”
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